Poker Dream 17, Genting Malaysia Report

During my downswing I decided to take a break and booked a month long trip. I later found out it clashed with the early part of Poker Dream 17. As jet lagged as I was, I still didn't want to miss any of the action. Headed straight to Genting after 20 hours of flights and transits, checked in and jumped into my first event of the series. It was super turbo-y but played well, took a spot with KJ but ran into AQ. 

Decent view from my room

I have about RM 700k in cashes from Poker Dream Malaysia events. RM 6500 of that is from cashing once in the Main Event. Hmm... I should have spotted this pattern sooner before I burned another 4 bullets trying this series. I try not to share bad beat stories, but this is a funny one so bear with me. A friend of mine came by and asked if I wanted to take a photo with his patch, OnlyAces. I obliged so I put in on but the cameraman said let's wait for the next hand cause he wanted a photo of a hand in progress. UTG 1 opens, 3 others called, and I look down at only ACES. Such a nice squeeze spot I jammed, UTG 1 sigh calls with 22, others folded. I flipped over my hand and told everyone why I thought it was funny, getting aces when OnlyAces boss asked me to put his patch on. But as soon as I said that I felt bad and I knew I was going to get punished. Flop 234, turn 5, river 3. 

OnlyAces... Grrrrrr

4 bullets later, I felt good about my play (except a couple of blunders) but main thing was I couldn't string hands together to get any momentum. Usually I don't eat during a tournament and by the time I busted my last bullet it was late so I decided to skip food for the rest of the day. Next day I played the Mystery Bounty HR, again from level 1, something I am trying this series. I have been praying for, or more like complaining about the lack of momentum but boy did I have loads of it today. But more so, the effect of fasting gave me better focus and brain processing power. By the end of the day, I had 6.5x the starting stack. Of course after 50 hours without food, I had to reward myself.

Day 2 started but due to bad food, I had stomach issues, and also did not sleep well. I felt lethargic and drained. Then I get Subseadiver1 on my table, and he definitely put my courage to the test. Called his starting stack open rip with A8s vs Q5o. Of course, Q5 is good! Thank God I had enough to afford it. After his double up, he rips 2x starting stack now and I look down at JTs, which is callable vs his range, but I folded it. Someone else called and he turns over T9s. I would have won but never mind. Next hand I get A9s and he does it again this time with 1.2x starting. This time we hold vs J9 and we get back our chips and some interest. Great guy Nick, lots of love buddy!

Grinded my way into the money, and came this key hand after a series of hands. Aggressive Indonesian player makes it 5bb on the button, sb rips for 28bb, he calls off with 65s vs TT. The next hand obviously tilted he 3b jams and gets everyone to fold. Following right after I look down at 55 on the button. I was okay with jamming but hesitated and went with a 2bb open. Him on the big blind decides to put me all in for my remaining 19bb. At this juncture, our table had pretty even stacks. No one looked like busting anytime soon and payjumps were pretty small. So I said out loud, "play to win, let's go". He flips over K9o, and we hold for a very key pot. Ended up finishing 5th with a small bounty, turning my series around, and a boost of confidence. Could have done better in a couple of hands, especially had I slept better and ate better (or not eaten at all). 

Off to the next series in 4 days, look forward to a full series grind and catching up with friends! 

POKER GUIDE TO : Poker in Estoril, Portugal

I have always enjoyed playing at new locations. The opportunity to keep my reputation obscure, even role play as a tourist whale, sometimes pretending not to speak certain languages so I could eavesdrop, and testing my profiling and reading skills for me is part of the enjoyment playing at different rooms, casinos, cities and countries. 7 years ago when I first visited Portugal I thought I would get the chance to play while visiting Lisbon. To my dismay, I found the casino but they did not offer poker games. I later found out the best game in town was about 1 hour away from Lisbon in a town called Estoril. So I was determined at some point in my life to try the games there. 

Estoril is a beach town, full of nice houses for the rich and famous, beautiful villas overlooking the ocean, and of course rich holiday goers. Dr. Stanley Ho seeing this opportunity to target tourists and the elite Portuguese crowd built a casino together with a park right by the Estoril train stop and named it Casino Estoril. To my surprise and I assume due to local law, the casino doesn't open till 3pm. So we took the opportunity to explore this little town, especially along the coastline. It has a cute little town but the most impressive were the rock cliffs (Boca de Inferno) and stone villas. 

I happen to be there on a Friday night so maybe games were better than usual. By 9pm there were already 5 tables going and the supervisor told me on Fridays, game run till 6am. Games start from €1/3 and goes up to 5/10 usually. Rake was a reasonable 5% capped at 5bb for the lower games, and goes down to 1-2bb for high stakes. I ordered a bottle of water which was free, but I tipped. No preflop or chopped pot rake but I did notice that if you do not specify you want to sit out, they still post the blinds for you in your absence. 

My table happened to be quite soft. I noticed only one good player, but quite a few loose passive juicy fishes. From my observation, the tables all looked soft to me and I made a remark that it was the softest game I've played in Europe. Given that Portugal has one of the lowest cost of living in Western Europe, although Estoril is slightly on the high side, I think it is quite possible to grind a good living playing here. One down side is they have a lower minimum buy than I liked but most people do buy in 100bbs+. 

To get to the casino, you can take a train from Lisbon city from Cais do Sodré station. It takes about 40 minutes costing just €2.95 one way. Get off at the stop called Estoril and it's across the street. Can't miss it. The main town is about a 30 minute walk away but on a good day, it is quite enjoyable strolling along the coastline to get there. If you have the time, you can also make a trip to nearby town called Sintra where you can find an impressive castle and palace on top of the hill. 

Portugal is number 35 on my list of countries I've played poker in. I don't know where the next one will be but on my bucket list there's South America, Japan, UK countries (apart from England)... but wherever it may be, I hope my passion and bankroll will continue to grow until that time. 

POKER GUIDE TO : Poker in Paris, France

I had no luck finding any games in Lille, and when I was in Bordeaux, I happen to visit the casino on the only day of the week where the poker room does not run (Saturday). It might have been a misunderstanding or miscommunication because I feel it doesn't make sense, but I didn't stick around to find out. However I did find a couple of cool places to play poker in Paris.

Mr. Gorilla really wanted to climb up the Eiffel

Instead of full fledged casinos, they are licensed but has a underground feel to it. You enter an obscure entrance area, although the muscular bouncer kinds of gives it away a little. There's no fancy signs or posters, but you feel like you're entering a casino where 007 goes to stakeout his villain. 

The one I frequented the most was Club Pierre Charron, located not too far from the Arc de Triumphe, off the famous avenue Champs-Elysée, in a really posh area of town. There are table games of course but they have quite a few tables of Holdem and Omaha. Games start from €1/2 and I think I saw them running €10/20 PLO as well. Of course as usual you bring your passport, get registered, use your member card to scan and queue, and the card is required during buy in and cash out as well. 

Quite a few positives about this place. The decor is cool, staff were pretty friendly, of course they seem to treat the French speaking players better, plenty of game choices, players were reasonably friendly too. They serve free water but I assume everything else you'll have to pay for. Dealers are decent and cards are machine shuffled, but the coolest part is they have a box where I assume is RFID scans the total pot and it is shown real time. So no need to calculate the pot for sizing, and the rake is always accurate. It also displays further information like the biggest pot size, average pot size so you can gauge how the action is as soon as you sit down. 

However, the rake is exorbitant. According to my friend, it is 4% uncapped. I watched the screen a few times but I still couldn't work out how the calculation works. There's preflop rake and chop pot rake as well. The tables I were playing in, action was a bit slow, not many big pots or splashy players. On the up side I don't think many pros play there. My friend did make a good profit playing there for a few days though. 

On the next street is the Paris Elysées Club. I went there a couple of times, just as cool, maybe even a slightly better interior. However both times no poker games were running. On my second visit I saw 3 or 4 people waiting for the game to start and I put my name down on the queue, but didn't hang around for it. I think at the moment they are losing to their competition next door. Maybe this can spark a rake war and become a win-win for the players. 

Paris Elysées Club

There's something about playing poker in Paris, ending the game late night, walking out to see the Arc in the distance. Paris at night is beautiful. Pro tip, I took at bus to the location at night cause right in front of my hotel is a bus that stops 30 meters from the club. Not on purpose but I never have small change with me, so every time I would try to pay the bus driver using a 10, 20, or 50 note they will just wave me away and gave me a free ride. I hope I don't get any Paris bus drivers in trouble but I get it. They have a route to drive and they really can't be bothered to give €47.50 change using a pretty archaic system. Most European city buses now accept credit cards. 

You can see the Arc if you zoom in

Overall it was a nice experience to play there and also to pick up my 34th country I've played poker in. I wouldn't grind there but if you happen to be in Paris and are itching for a game, it's not bad to play a short session for fun.